Avishai Cohen's Triveni - Dark Nights named one of the Best Jazz Albums of 2014

There have been many alternative ‘Best Of’ lists these past few weeks; DownBeat sighted Sonny Rollins, Dave Holland and The Bad Plus as their top three. Many included Pat Metheny Unity Group, Ambrose Akinmusire, Kris Bowers and Takuya Kuroda in their lists. Big names like Keith Jarrett, Wayne Shorter, Pat Metheny, Stanley Clarke, Al Jarreau, Chick Corea, Ron Carter, Bobby Hutcherson and Billy Cobham all had new albums this year. There were also releases from some of our favourite names; Terence Blanchard, Rubén Blades, Monty Alexander, Soil & ‘Pimp’ Sessions, Harvey Mason, Incognito, Cro-Magnon, Carmen Lundy, Ginger Baker, Dee Dee Bridgwater [via Theo Croker] and even Freda Payne. Nicole Mitchell, who hit our top spot last year, also had a new album out in 2014.

So what lights the flame that keeps

ukvibe’s passion for jazz burning? Well, a few EPs hit this mark ‘” progressive jazz from Tori Handsley Trio and the stunning Black Top (Pat Thomas/Orphy Robinson/Steve Williamson) punched high. On the compilation front, we loved ‘Spiritual Jazz Vol. 5’² from Jazzman but ‘Now’s the time III: The best in contemporary jazz from France & Luxembourg’ CLEANED UP and new delightful voices Melanie de Biasio, Aimua Eghobamien, Myles Sanko and Allegra Levy caught our attention. We were also delighted by the revamped album by Laura Mvula ‘” this time with Metropole Orkest. Another delight was the beautiful ‘Dance Without Answer’ by Norma Winstone. On the reissue front we ranked Norma Winstone ‘Edge of Time’, Henri-Pierre Noel’s ‘One More Step’, New Jazz Orchestra’s ‘Le Déjeuner sur l’Herbe’, ‘Janet Lawson Quintet’ on BBE and the two Cymande albums favourite.

We felt the following record labels were on the cusp this year:
Whirlwind, Babel, Savant, Okeh, Sunnyside, ECM, Delmark and Mack Avenue.

Moving on, we would first draw your attention to a batch of exceptional first-time releases that should form part of everyone’s music library. With this month marking the 50th year of the release of John Coltrane’s ‘A Love Supreme’ it was more than a delight to find a never before released album by Coltrane surface in 2014. ‘Offering: Live at Temple University’ recorded back in 1966 was such a delight (and released on both CD and vinyl too), that perhaps everything else this year was left standing. So to give everyone else an equal chance in this year’s ‘ukvibe best of 2014’² we will place this and a few other ‘special’ releases back on the mantle to watch over our judgment: